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2010
Written by Eric Davidson
It seems weird to me to have a retrospective collection type book covering music that's barely 20 years old. And yet, given the nature of something like the music industry that's almost an eternity. And for a sub-, sub-, sub-scene like what's generally labeled as "garage rock" the quick rise and disappearance seems hardly notably, just another fad in a series of musical fads.
Yet ex-New Bomb Turks' frontman and author Eric Davidson seems best suited to chronicling this style of music, if only because he and his band were a rather big part of it. In the prologue he states the motivation for this style of music and what his coined term "gunk punk" actually refers to. Seeking some escape from late 80's malaise and the popular music trends of the day, Davidson and his ilk sought out their own expression that was primarily focused on entertaining any audience. The energy source was definitely punk but without its fashionistas and political trappings. So the musical insiprations and acts came from unlikely places that turned out to be just as likely as any other.
With interviews and anecdotes ranging from his own stories to label execs like Long Gone John (Sympathy for the Record Industry) and Tim Warren (Crypt) Davidson's able to provide a fairly comprehensive "you are there" type of feel to the book overall. It suffers from some structural consistency due to this as well, cutting between genres and movements and bands in the middle of the book itself, though. But, overall, it follows pretty closely to the timeline from the title, up to 2001.
The strength of Davidson's book, beyond the available source material, is its proximity to the scene and being able to relate the sound and the fury of it all in very real, palpable, sweat- and beer-soaked terms. Anecdotes from band's on various shows, tours, venues all provide a field-level view of the action at its finest. He even works in the trials and tribulations of major label involvement, seeing what effect it has on the scene and how some of its bad examples became more of warning klaxons that killed off some scenes rather than isolated instances. He manages to take the good, the bad, and the wonderfully raucous and mix it all into a stew of non-mainstream-y, balls-out, unabashed pure rawk-ed-ness with this approach and it really pays off.
We Never Learn is well worth the read even if you're only marginally interested in the scene or have only heard of some of the bands and not had a proper introduction. It's a good insider's-view of an energized scene that, thankfully, could only go so far but drunkenly and passionately try for more.
(Note: At the back of the book Davidson lists out some "top" singles and albums worth checking out. Also included, though, is a download code for a sampler of 20 tracks that provide a good accompanying soundtrack as well. That part is worth it alone.)
